大象传媒

I arrived in India in 1942 AT Bombay on the troop ship Dominion Monarch transferred to Deolali for acclimatization. After a couple of weeks I was posted to Rowalpindi which was an arsenal built around a Victorian fort. I transferred to the Indian army ordnance core. I was taught to drive and had lessons the instructions were in English as well as Urdu we had to pass a verbal test in Urdu for which re recieved 100 rupees. I subsequently was transferred to a Beach group for work on the large Indian rivers we were based at a place called Mymensingh we suffered a lot from monsoon floods.

Among my duties was control of an emergency RAF landing ground were my instructions were solely "when I saw a plane I was to fire green flare" and empty the field of Bullocks. I developed severe skin trouble and I was given a medical certificate forbidding me shave so I grew a rather spectacular beard. I was shipped to Quetta in Baluchistan were I found it to contain 2 feet of snow - my skin trouble cleared uo in 2 weeks. I then had a shave. Whist at Quetta I severed once again in a fort and Arsenal as warrant officer in charge of admin over the coming weeks I grew tired of the laxk of action and at the age of 21 I volunteered to go to the front. After a six day rail journey to Calcutta I turned to Mymensingh were I found my unit had moved to Dacca and I subsequently rejoined my unit. By this time the offence against the Japanese was going in our favor then was transferred again to Manipur road which was the base for the British assault to the defeat of the Japanese. Whist we were there the battle of Kohima was being fought but we were not immediately involved. During this period I was appointed "Conductor R. A. O.C. Which is the highest Warrant Officer in the British army? Eventually it was decided that we would join the force for invading Rangoon once again a long train journey to Chittagong were we embarked on the BI Varela to Ranggon. As arrived in Rangoon river the Japanese were on the point of surrendering this was on the 3rd of May - my birthday which I spent persuading the Indian troops of our unit to climb down into a small landing craft which they were unwilling to do as they were quite happy ion the big ship. This took several journeys from me down the kanding net top encourage them to go down. Eventually we went ashore which not much resistance apart from the odd sniper.

We set up a base on Monkey Island very near to the RAF flying boat base and the aircraft on takeoff used to regularly bombard our camp with dead dogs fish and unmentionable things which were caught up in there floats on take off. After a few weeks we received the news of the atomic bomb being dropped and of course our mess through a giant party were I ashamed to remember we all sang land of Land of Hope and Glory with tears in out eyes and alcohol fueled. I recieved the Burma Star the Victory medal. The 39-45 medal.

Eventually my demob number came up and we left Rangoon on the Felix Roussel and had a wonderful return cruise arrived in Liverpool demobbed and became and entered civy street.

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